“It is the sauce that distinguishes a good chef. The Saucier is a soloist in the orchestra of a great kitchen.” – Fernand Point
So true! You can saute a chicken breast to perfection and make a great meal, but if you know how to make simple pan sauces, you can prepare a hundred different meals. Furthermore, you are going to find every cuisine has it’s own style of sauces, some similar, some completely different.
For example, Italian sauces for pasta like a Genovese sauce are much different from classic French sauces like a demi glace sauce. A simple soy ginger sauce for Chinese dumplings looks and tastes different from an Indian curry sauce. Even barbecue sauces can be different depending on where you live.
So here are some of my favorite sauces from various cuisines that you can enjoy with your favorite meals.
How to Make a Restaurant Quality Espagnole Sauce Brown sauce is one of the five “Grand” or “Mother” sauces of French cuisine, the other four being béchamel, tomato, velouté and hollandaise. A Grand sauce is a base sauce from which a plethora of derivative sauces are then made. Brown sauce, as the name implies, is […]
The Grand Sauces In French cooking, the grand sauces, or mother sauces, are a group of fundamental sauces from which many secondary or derivative sauces are made. This is not to say that the grand sauces cannot stand alone. They are frequently employed in their original state in a variety of dishes. Nevertheless they can […]
How to Make Vegetable Stock Before you throw out those wilted vegetables when cleaning out your refrigerator, you may want to try making a batch of vegetable stock. You can use it for making vegetarian soups and stews or how about just substituting beef or chicken stock. And if you don’t use it right away, […]
How to Make White Chicken Stock The difference between a white chicken stock and a brown chicken stock is simple. White chicken stock is made by boiling chicken bones without roasting them first and brown chicken stock requires roasting the bones first. Roasting bones first gives the brown chicken stock more dept of flavor and […]
How to Make Restaurant Quality Stocks at Home Could you imagine having to create a singular sauce with singular ingredients for every dish on the menu? Long ago, European chefs realized that it was a much more efficient way to run a kitchen to have sauce components on hand that could be altered or made […]
How Much Sauce Should You Put On Food? At restaurants, where food cost is king, the difference between 1 ounce and 3 ounces of sauce on a dish translates to cash for the restaurant. No matter what type of restaurant, portion control is a key to quality, consistency and revenue. At McDonald’s they have a […]
Having the Right Equipment Makes a Difference Saucier A saucepan whose sides curve up gently from the bottom as opposed to having a completely flat bottom and straight sides. This makes it much easier to cover the entire bottom of the pan when stirring a sauce with a wooden spoon or a whisk. And the […]
Important Techniques for Making Great Sauces at Home Now that we have looked at some of the important ingredients used for restaurant quality sauces, let’s look at a few of the important cooking techniques associated with sauce making. This is not a complete list. There are some great saucing cookbooks that go into much more […]
More Ingredients for Great Sauces at Home Part 1 of The Secret to Successful Sauces – Ingredients Cooking with Flavor Enhancers One of the differences between restaurant chefs and home cooks is that chefs are familiar with a wide variety of specialty ingredients that can subtly or not-so-subtly enhance a sauce. They understand the diner’s […]
Ingredients Chefs Use to Make Restaurant Quality Sauces It’s one thing to offer a book full of sauce recipes. It is quite another to open the swinging door to the restaurant kitchen and reveal chefs’ secrets for sauce making. What follows is an explanation of the tricks of the trade – the ingredients, techniques and […]
I'm a work-at-home dad who enjoys cooking, learning everything I can about the culinary world and sharing it with you. To learn more about me... Read More
How to Make the Best Beef Wellington This Beef Wellington recipe has become a tradition in our house. We prepare it every couple of years for Christmas and made it again this year. If I’m lucky, we will have it next year and the year after that. My wife originally found a recipe in Fine […]
Christmas Standing Rib Roast Thanksgiving is a holiday in which turkey really shines. Many of you would rather not deal with another turkey just four weeks after Thanksgiving. Some of you might still have some frozen leftovers. The Christmas meal is a celebratory meal, and as such, celebration food is a natural at the Christmas […]
How to Bake A Ham For Christmas
Baked Christmas Ham Recipe Would you like to serve a wonderfully flavorful and juicy ham for the holidays? Here’s a can’t-go-wrong recipe that will have your guests asking for seconds, and for a plate of leftovers, as well. Be sure to read about the history of serving ham on Christmas and the various types of […]
